Distracted …

I’m in the library … a grad student has no regular hours … well, that and I played hookey with family again yesterday … not including cleaning my place for their visit the day before … someone please shoot the carillon-er; I hate those things … either a bell is mis-tuned or the performer is hitting wrong notes … I can’t concentrate, so distracted … this book is a fascinating topic; why did it turn to pig latin? … distracted … the words on the page swim … they might as well say blah blah interstitial blah blah everywhere … I miss my ex-boyfriend; the insufferable jerk. … no, I don’t mean that … or maybe I do … or what…

Maybe food will snap me back into focus … can you die from too much caffeine? … no, it’s a scattered, not a jittery, distraction … the sky is a wash of gun-metal gray … oh hello, beautiful, you can come home with me … acres of bikes on their kickstands, no locks; why aren’t they stolen? Are there really no poor people in town? … more boys on their skateboards failing to jump the concrete steps … no blood, no broken bones … honey, if you’d cover your tits and your legs you wouldn’t be cold; you look ridiculous with fur boots, mini and your fur hood up; my advice: wear pants … there are sparrows in here, inside the food court … chirp chirp, stab at some crumbs, consider me with a bright little sidecocked eye … why did I order this? I don’t want this … sound washes over me … midway between a bank of Faux News and big-screen football; they blend to a mishmash and wash in and out of focus … Pax Americana … crowds appear to be cheering sprightly blondes announcing regressive socio-economic policies … third-down and our troops may be able make this a real turning-point, make lasting gains if they can only hold damage to a minimum at Basra … now I’ve gone from distracted to sick … glad I didn’t take the super-size only 50 cents more … I throw away the rest of the Ford extended-cab pickup and leave some crumbs for the sparrow … where did it go? … still no sun … eating didn’t help at all, still distracted … my family tells me that Younger Cousin is dating the offspring of someone famous yet again ... he has a facility with that... it's like another planet to me ... why bother? ... at least it’s pleasantly warm in the lib. after that walk rather than oppressively so… girl you’ve got to get over yourself and focus, you have things to do … why did I even get out of my nice warm empty bed this morning?... oh yeah … focus… focus…